HOUSE LEADERS URGES ABAD

HOUSE independent minority bloc leader and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad Jr. should now begin making full accounting of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to end the confusion triggered by his deafening silence on where the controversial funds were spent.

This was the response of Romualdez following reports that the DBM issued 900 special allotment release orders (Saros) for DAP allocations from 2011 to 2013.

“We want to know the regularity of how these funds were utilized. But there was nothing, there was total silence from Secretary Abad and it was a deafening silence,” Romualdez, a lawyer and president of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), lamented.

Earlier Romualdez appealed to Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. to call Abad to a Question Hour so that lawmakers can be enlightened on DAP whose key provisions were outlawed by the Supreme Court.

For his part, Belmonte said there was nothing wrong even if so many Saros were released for lawmakers as long as these were used to intended projects with regularity.